Spiderweb 3
—Tssrrr!
—Crack!
At my command, Cho slipped from my sleeve and promptly sank its fangs into the back of the pedipalp that had taken on Namgung Seol’s form.
Namgung Seol’s eyes flew wide open at the same instant.
The pedipalp wearing her face stared at me in utter disbelief.
Betrayal was written all over that face—sheer, stunned incredulity.
Then the beautiful features twisted into an expression of pure pathos.
It was a pitiful look laced with just the right mix of decadence and allure, nothing like the real Namgung Seol. She was more of a fresh spring-flower beauty; I had wondered whether a face like that would even suit her. But a woman’s transformation—no, a spider’s mimicry—turned out to be guiltless after all.
Even though it was only mimicry, the almost human emotional reaction drew a quiet note of admiration from me. The expression looks so real.
In Iran there is a spider-tailed viper whose tail tip is shaped like a spider; it wriggles that tail exactly like the real thing to lure the birds it hunts.
So this creature’s behavior was of the same order—an act for drawing prey.
It had probably evolved that way.
To feed on the yang energy that was its food, it would have needed to seduce men, so of course it would perform the expressions best suited to the job.
Borrowing Namgung Seol’s appearance was, from that angle, the perfect choice.
She was ranked the greatest beauty in the Central Plains; wearing that face would make seducing men all the easier.
I first pulled Cho—still with its venom fangs buried in the creature’s back—free and tucked it into my robes, then released the body I had been holding and stepped away.
The creature trembled violently and shuffled after me.
As it pursued me, its body slowly emerged from the undergrowth, until at last the moonlight laid bare its entire beautiful form.
A vivid scarlet body.
Four great spots across the back.
Soft, dense fur like velvet.
It looked for all the world like one of Korea’s red spiders painted scarlet right down to the tips of its legs.
“How beautiful…”
At my murmured admiration the organs that served as its eyes widened once more.
It tried to come farther, yet could not manage more than three steps before it halted where it stood.
The poison was circulating, no doubt.
At the last it stretched an arm toward me as though to seize me, but the purpose failed; the arm dropped limply.
—Thud!
It toppled sideways just like that.
Its body flipped completely onto its back.
And there it lay, spider legs twitching and trembling exactly as if it had been hit with insecticide.
“Let’s see if it’s properly paralyzed.”
It looked as though it were dying, but it could not actually be dead.
I stepped closer to examine it.
The reason I had ordered Cho to bite without hesitation was simple: there was no chance it would die from the Ohgongi’s venom.
That came down to the relationship, inside any ecosystem, between a centipede’s usual prey and its poison. Ordinary centipedes feed on insects, spiders, or small animals such as frogs.
Yes—even if this spider was on the large side, it was still food for the Ohgongi.
People only ever notice that centipede venom can harm humans, so they never learn the original purpose for which those toxins evolved. Centipede venom is a neurotoxin system designed to paralyze the insects and animals they eat—even though it happens to hurt people as well.
The venom exists precisely to drop their prey in an instant.
That was why I had Cho bite the spider.
The Ohgongi are lower-grade venomous creatures, stronger than ordinary centipedes, yet the spider now lying before me was roughly a match for their toxicity; I had little to worry about.
Besides, even at a glance the spider looked to be a venomous creature on a par with the Ohgongi, or greater. At this level it has to be at least upper-grade.
The unnatural fog, the webs spread across the ground, and—though I still did not know why I myself had been unaffected—the testimony of the people previously kidnapped all pointed to some power that could bewitch humans. Upper-grade was certain.
I stroked the fake head that still stared at me with open eyes and said,
“I hope you won’t feel too wronged. After all the harm you’ve done people, someone would have caught and killed you eventually. I just saved you from that.”
A brief check confirmed my conclusion.
The spider was only paralyzed; its breath had not stopped.
Its abdomen continued to rise and fall as it breathed. Hmm… but I just can’t hold back, can I?
I had confirmed it was thoroughly paralyzed. The longer I stared, the less I could restrain myself.
I felt as though I had captured some extraordinary new species of spider, and I wanted to examine every inch of its body.
Since it would not be moving for a while, I decided to study it carefully in the meantime.
I was simply too curious about its detailed form.
Spider faces come in every shape imaginable, so I started there. What will it look like? Will the venom fangs be huge, like a tarantula’s?
To uncover its true face I took hold of the pedipalp legs that still wore Namgung Seol’s likeness and spread them apart.
I was peering intently at the part I took for its face when I spoke.
“Let’s see. Let’s see how pretty you are.”
A startled voice rang out behind me.
“So-ryong, no!”
At Noonim’s sudden cry I turned. She was racing toward me with Bing and Hyang perched on either shoulder.
The moment she reached me she pulled me hard against her chest and said,
“Circulate the Tang Sect’s internal energy method and breathe. Hoo… ha… You can do it, So-ryong.”
“Yes? Suddenly?”
I blinked at the abrupt order. Noonim’s eyes went wide with alarm as she examined mine.
After staring into them for a long moment she wore an expression of pure disbelief.
“You’re not intoxicated by the fog? Th-then—!”
Her face grew even more shocked.
“So-ryong… then what exactly were you doing just now?”
Noonim’s cheeks had gone scarlet.
I glanced down at myself and had to admit the scene was easy to misread.
I was holding open the legs of something that still looked like the reclining Namgung Seol.
“Y-young lady, th-that’s not— I can explain everything. Really. I was only trying to see how pretty it was, I swear.”
“What!? You said you were trying to see how pretty it was!? Where, exactly?”
That was not what I meant at all, yet I could feel the misunderstandings piling higher by the second.
“So you’re saying you were only trying to see how pretty the spider was? That this is not a human body at all, but a spider mimicking one?”
Noonim crossed her arms and regarded me as though conducting an interrogation.
Apparently the man she had once considered marriage material was now displaying some very strange inclinations.
I stroked the abdomen of the spider I had captured and answered at once.
“That’s right. I only wanted to see how pretty the spider’s form was. Look—this red is gorgeous, isn’t it? And the fur here is so smooth and soft.”
“Ah—all right, just stop stroking the spider.”
When I ran my hand over the soft abdomen, Noonim jumped.
I took my hand away as ordered, and only then did relief settle over her face.
I like spiders; I do not love them. Her reaction felt a little excessive.
The misunderstanding cleared, I reluctantly decided further examination could wait and set to work.
I did not know how strong the creature might be when it woke, so I gathered the webs spread across the ground, twisted them into cord, and bound its legs.
Spider silk is a fiber of enormous elasticity and strength; it would easily hold a force of that level.
Once the spider was secured, Noonim asked,
“But So-ryong, why were you here in the first place? It doesn’t seem as though you were lured by this creature.”
Only then did I remember that I had been so absorbed in the spider I had completely forgotten I had followed a scream.
“Ah! Right! I heard a scream here.”
“A scream!?”
“Yes. I chased after someone’s scream and ended up here…”
“Then we should check the surroundings. Someone may have fallen victim to this thing.”
I had been so lost in the spider that I had forgotten my companions’ safety.
Noonim and I searched the area briefly, yet found no sign of Namgung Seol or Namgung Eun.
“Nothing around here.”
“Indeed. Strange. It was definitely a scream. Could this creature make sounds as well?”
I was crouching in front of the spider, wondering whether it might even be capable of vocalizing, when—
—Tap.
A droplet struck my head.
Thinking it might be rain, I looked up. Something was dangling from the crown of a tree.
“No way!”
At my cry Noonim lifted her eyes; her startled voice rang out.
“Eun!”
A flying dagger shot skyward. Noonim caught Namgung Eun as she fell, still wrapped in a cocoon.
“Eun, are you all right?”
Namgung Eun could not answer; she only wept without end.
It seemed the spider had bitten her, yet her eyes still moved, so it was almost certainly the same paralysis toxin.
Her life was not in danger, so I laid her gently on the ground.
“By the way, the only one left now is Young Lady Namgung Seol, yet she still hasn’t found us.”
When I mentioned the remaining young lady, Noonim glanced at the fog that had begun to thin around us.
“She probably won’t be able to enter easily until the fog is completely gone. Even I couldn’t bring myself to step into it at first. So-ryong, are you all right? Ah—of course you were fine…”
“You mean aside from not being able to see well?”
Since nothing else was wrong, I shook my head. Noonim shuddered as she spoke, as though the memory itself were unpleasant.
“This fog is definitely the spider’s doing. When you breathe it in, lust surges so strongly you’d swear it was an aphrodisiac. Not quite that strong, but close…”
“The fog?”
“Yes. I inhaled only a little and was so shocked I fled outside and forced the energy out. Young Lady Namgung Seol won’t manage to come in until the fog clears. Internal energy methods as resistant to poison and drugs as the Tang Family’s are rare.”
“Ah—then the villagers who seemed possessed by ghosts… that was the fog as well…”
The pieces fell into place with Noonim’s explanation.
People had been intoxicated by the fog, then bewitched by the spider, and so all claimed to have seen roughly the same thing.
The reaction Noonim had shown me earlier made sense now, too.
She must have thought I was inflamed by lust and about to do something improper to the spider. Even so, that’s a bit much. Still—could the fog’s true nature be something like a pheromone that excites people?
In every respect this creature was astonishing.
I found myself wanting to know its name.
“Young lady, do you happen to know what this creature is called?”
Something this remarkable ought to be known to Noonim.
I asked, yet her face quickly colored with fluster; she answered in an extremely unnatural tone.
“W-well… I’ll h-have to return to the family and ch-check. It feels as though I ought to remember, b-but I can’t quite recall.”
“So even Young Lady Hwa-eun has things she doesn’t know. I thought everyone in the Tang Family had the names of venomous creatures memorized cold.”
“E-even I don’t memorize everything, y-you know.”
It felt as though she knew something and was deliberately hiding it.
But what could I do? If Noonim said so, then so it was.
We were still talking when Namgung Seol appeared in the small clearing.
The moment she saw her collapsed younger sister and the spider’s face, rage twisted her features and she drew her sword.
—Shing.
“This demon has sullied my honor and even gone after Eun!”
She looked ready to cut it down in a single stroke.
I leapt forward at once, arms spread wide, and shouted,
“Wait! Young Lady Namgung Eun is alive, and I caught the spider—so it’s mine!”
“What?”
Namgung Seol stared at me in confusion.
This Namgung Family apparently had no grasp of capture etiquette.
Even if we had come out as a group to collect insects, the one who caught the specimen first is its owner. That is the unspoken rule of group insect collecting. This family has been unlikable ever since they pulverized that lizard. Did they pulverize their conscience along with it?